Ronaldo’s Portugal glory, Frank in frame for Spurs job, toddler on the pitch!

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Hello! CR7 and the 2026 World Cup. It’s a date.

On the way:

🏆 Ronaldo’s Nations League glory

💭 Frank tipped for Spurs job

💰 Chelsea bid for Gittens

👶 Toddler’s MLS pitch invasion

Master beats apprentice: Ronaldo leads Portugal to Nations League win over Yamal’s Spain

Optus Sports

If there was any doubt about whether Cristiano Ronaldo believes he has another World Cup in him — and let’s be real, there’s none — we can park it here. The tears flowed after his 138th international goal (below) helped Portugal beat Spain in the UEFA Nations League final last night. He just can’t get enough.

The debate over his value to Portugal will rage, and it’s hard not to side with those who think Portugal coach Roberto Martinez is allowing the tail to wag the dog by accommodating Ronaldo at every turn. These days, the odd goal struggles to mask the forward’s broader, more limited impact — but he’s not going anywhere, and the die is cast.

FIFA won’t be able to market his face at this year’s Club World Cup — Ronaldo revealed over the weekend that he has turned down offers to play in it, indicating that he might stay with Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia — but FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, can count on having him at the 2026 World Cup. The tournament is shaping up to be the closing chapter in the Ronaldo-Lionel Messi story, after which Portugal, Argentina and the game at large can move on.

A pleasing evening for Portugal was a subdued one for Lamine Yamal, and the old timer in 40-year-old Ronaldo must have enjoyed putting the teenager in his place (even if it was Nuno Mendes who kept a lid on the Spain prodigy). Logic says that Martinez could build a slicker, better line-up if he was brave enough to bench his untouchable No 7 — but there’s no way Ronaldo heads for the hills without giving football’s biggest prize one last crack.

Spalletti announces own sacking

One man we won’t be seeing at next year’s World Cup: Italy coach Luciano Spalletti. He’s finished, in tremendously ridiculous circumstances.

His side were trounced 3-0 by Erling Haaland’s Norway in a World Cup qualifier on Friday, and Spalletti took it upon himself at a press conference yesterday to announce he had been sacked. The laughable caveat is that he’ll take charge of another match against visitors Moldova tonight first. Sounds like a plan.

The Italians are in a full-on meltdown phase. It started when Inter centre-back Francesco Acerbi declined a call-up for this batch of fixtures, implying that Spalletti was disrespecting him. It got weirder when Spalletti’s predecessor, Roberto Mancini, liked a post by Acerbi explaining his reasoning on Instagram. Spalletti was asked by the media if he felt betrayed and reacted to the question by storming out of his briefing.

A reset is called for and it’s coming, but not before he shreds his last scrap of dignity.

Pochettino rules out Spurs return

Reassuring news for those who think Mauricio Pochettino will get the USMNT in order. He’s not interested in throwing his name in the hat for the vacant job at Tottenham Hotspur (hold that thought, readers), and if he has any unfinished business back at his former club in north London, a third defeat in a row leaves him with just as much on the U.S. front.

His depleted squad didn’t seem too downbeat about a 2-1 loss to Turkey on Saturday, although they’ll cringe a little when they watch some of their defending back. Replays of the defeat will be less sleep-inducing than the 1-0 win for England away to tiny Andorra which had Thomas Tuchel stewing over a lack of spark and imagination.

It’s funny: international management was cast as a change of pace for Tuchel and Pochettino, two men breaking away from the exhausting cut-and-thrust of the club scene. Both are discovering that their new environment brings new challenges, and its own set of frustrations.

• Here’s a regrettable story from the Scotland camp. On Friday, and owing to a long injury list, they gave a first international appearance to goalkeeper Cieran Slicker. The 22-year-old, who is on the books of Ipswich Town, has never appeared in a league game at club level and, perhaps predictably, his outing was a disaster. Scotland lost 3-1 to visitors Iceland and Slicker was at fault for all three goals (the second is below). They do say you don’t forget your debut.

Scotland National Team

News round-up

🖱️ Most clicked in Friday’s TAFC: Philipp Lahm on Wirtz and Musiala.

Transfer talk

Chelsea are at it again. Not content with adding Liam Delap to their forward line, while simultaneously courting Eintracht Frankfurt’s Hugo Ekitike, they’ve gone after Borussia Dortmund’s Jamie Gittens. The England Under-21 winger is ready to sign a seven-year deal at Stamford Bridge, if Chelsea can reach an agreement with Dortmund first (I know this sounds back to front, but it’s how the industry operates).

Day by day, the transfer market keeps churning the deals out. FIFA’s pre-Club World Cup window closes tomorrow and we’ve seen more early action than any of us anticipated, with buyers and sellers as enthusiastic as each other.

Liverpool’s bid for Florian Wirtz is now up to £113million ($153m), which would involve a guaranteed payment of £100m to Bayer Leverkusen. The wrangling is getting interesting because Leverkusen want closer to £130m but Liverpool don’t want to go that high. At the same time, Wirtz has two years left on his contract, and would cost nothing like as much next summer. It’s a classic game of brinkmanship.

A far cheaper move, and a savvy one, will be Kepa Arrizabalaga from Chelsea to Arsenal, for a fee of just £5m. He won’t displace David Raya as first choice but after a strong season on loan at Bournemouth, he’s excellent cover at a pretty negligible price. All we’re waiting for at the Emirates Stadium now is the arrival of that elusive centre-forward.

Cup not enough: Postecoglou pays for Spurs’ league form, Frank favourite for job

(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic;  Crystal Pix/MB Media, Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

The end was nigh for Ange Postecoglou, and the bell tolled on Friday. Of all the analysis I’ve read about his sacking by Tottenham Hotspur, Michael Cox’s did the best job of hitting the nail on the head. Postecoglou ticked short-term boxes — a rip-roaring start, a trophy as his parting gift — but long-term, incremental progress was missing, which makes moving on the sensible decision.

Thomas Frank is the leading candidate to replace him at Spurs, and Frank has long-termism in his favour. He’s just through season seven as head coach at Brentford, a team who have cracked the enigma of Premier League sustainability. Bear in mind that they were a League Two (fourth tier) club as recently as 2009, and a club whose new home stadium is about a quarter the size of Tottenham’s. Brentford are all about the build, with Frank as their architect.

They recruit intelligently and have done for years, but Frank maximises the impact of those transfers. They’ve made healthy profits on numerous players, and they’re in a position to do so again with Bryan Mbeumo (signed for £5.8m, now attracting an offer of £55m from Manchester United). Frank is also a fairly rare example of a coach who won promotion from the Championship and not only survived in the Premier League, but got better.

To some extent, he’s a safer bet than Postecoglou was when Spurs hired the Australian from Scotland’s Celtic in 2023. After a long stretch in his current role, Frank will be minded to take himself out of his comfort zone, and he said as much in this interview last year. Brentford will have the luxury of naming their price — but they’ll know that Frank to Tottenham makes a lot of sense.

Quiz answer

We asked you on Friday to name the three teams who have beaten England more than they’ve lost to them. They are Brazil, Uruguay and Italy. If only the English could catch Italy at a bad time…

Catch a match

(Selected games, times ET/UK)

UEFA World Cup qualifying: Belgium vs Wales, 2.45pm/7.45pm — Fubo, Amazon Prime/BBC; Croatia vs Czech Republic, 2.45pm/7.45pm — Fubo, ViX/Amazon Prime; Italy vs Moldova, 2.45pm/7.45pm — Fubo, ViX/Amazon Prime.

And finally…

I didn’t see anybody outdoing a raccoon in the MLS pitch-invading stakes, but I was wrong. On Saturday night, an actual toddler appeared from nowhere as Chicago Fire were in the process of annihilating D.C. United, shuffling goalward before a crowd member (their parent, presumably) rapidly intervened.

D.C. leaked like a sieve in a 7-1 defeat, with a level of defending a two-year-old would have punished. You can forgive the kid for wanting to get in on the act.

(Top photo: Kevin Voigt/GettyImages)

This news was originally published on this post .

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